September 05, 2006

Hizbollah in Venezuala Threaten U.S.

You read that right, Hezbollah in Venezuala. Actually, they call themselves Hezbollah Latin America. Their goal? Bringing the Khomeinist Islamic Revolution to the Western hemisphere.

Right: A meeting of Hezbollah in Venezuela somewhere on the Guajira Peninsula.

Hezbollah has been active in Latin America for some time. In 1992 the 'Party of God' bombed the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires. In 1998 Argentina expelled several Iranian diplomats after finding evidence of their involvement in the attack. In 1995 Hezbollah bombed the AMIA Jewish Community Center, again in Buenos Aires.

Hezbollah Latin America is looking into setting explosives against an allied organization of U.S.A. in Latin America.

The serious reason the launching for Hezbollah Latin America like an international movement, spreading the rejection to the attacks of Israel against Hezbollah Lebanon, showing our solidarity and endorsement to Hezbollah in its fight against Zionism and North American Imperialism.

The explosive apparatus will be of low power and will not cause injuries to people or property but will spread leaflets with slogans of Hezbollah Latin America against the occupation and against the Imperialism of USA.

In this form Hezbollah will appear before public opinion, national and international, like an Islamic revolutionary movement, that works to establish in all countries of Latin America, and from these countries to open a new space of Islamic resistance.

I wouldn't worry too much about Hezbo in Venezuela unless they begin to receive support from the Iranians. Their website seems both amateurish and even a bit unsure of what it means to be "Hezbollah". Their main focus seems to be on "resistance", which is very much in the mainstream of South American leftist rhetoric. In any event, these are definitely people to keep an eye on. It does not take much professionalism to do a lot of damage to soft targets.

Venezuela Today seems to concur with my assessment. Gustavo Coronel notes that the leader of the group is named Teodoro Darnott, now called "Commander Teodoro". Commander Teodoro has been a member of Hugo Chavez's political party in the past and called his communal project for the Wayuu tribe, Jehovah Nisi--a very evangelical Christian sounding name.

It is not clear when Commander Teodoro decided to switch, once more, philosophical preferences, to become a follower of Hezbollah. The little information I have on him suggests that he is a very uncultured person, certainly not an expert on the Islamic religion or ways of life. At some point in time the real Islamic fanatics probably contacted him.

Although Coronel believes that Commander Teodoro is in contact with Hezbollah, it is not clear how deep those connections are.

Coronel also notes:

So far, they seem limited to holding rather "incestuous" meetings among the members of the tribe, to talk about exotic religious concepts that probably do not hold much appeal to them, and to wearing Islamic attire in Venezuelan territory, a cultural statement probably mostly designed to counterbalance Western culture.

Even so, the women with their head uncovered, something certainly not in line with Hezbollah teachings.